Credit card payments will be available in cabs and minibuses in Istanbul. With a project to be initiated by İSPARK, the parking operator company owned by the Istanbul municipality, it would become possible to make payments by credit cards in cabs and mini buses in Istanbul. İSPARK's project will include credit card payments into the electronic payment network of public transportation along with Istanbul Kart, and 18,000 cabs and 6,334 minibuses are included within the scope of the project. This way, the accounting records of cabs and minibuses, which were kept with a simple procedure, will be easily followed, recorded and inspected.
According to the simple procedure, cabs and minibuses used to submit only one declaration to state their incomes and pay income tax once a year. However, from now on cab and minibus owners will be paying VAT each month and the income tax at the end of the year.
In Istanbul, a cab plate is worth around TL 1.8 million, and cab owners earn around TL 8,000 ($3,048) a month and pay around TL 3,450 on taxes; however, with the implementation of the new procedure, cab owners will be paying roughly TL 9,173 a year.
